Toto, I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore

I'm afraid I've become one of the people that I never wanted to be.  I'm a foreigner that can't stop talking about how much better everything was back at home.  I knew people like me in Chicago and they always bothered me.  I told people like me to go back home if everything was so much better in their country.  But maybe the real problem is that I never really understood those people. It's not always easy to put yourself in someone else's shoes (and I suppose I never really wanted to because I like MY shoes).   But now that I'm wearing my Italian shoes in Italy instead of Chicago, I have a different perspective.

The differences my foreign friends in Chicago used to point out were just that......differences.  Even if they didn't say something was better in their country, the fact that they'd pointed out the difference made me assume they were unhappy in their new home.  And I have a feeling I'm sending the same signal here.  The truth is, I think a lot of things really were better at home.  But not everything.  I'm sure there's a silver lining in almost all of these things.  

In a small town in northern Italy....
--rush hour is at noon.  The rush is to get home to eat lunch with moms and grandmas.
--waiters ignore you instead of continuing to ask if everything's okay or if you want something else.
--bank hours are even worse than banker's hours.  (8:20am-12:45pm.  And if you're lucky maybe again from 2:35pm to 4:35pm).
--you say "buon giorno" and "arriverderci" to the other customers upon entering and exiting the waiting room at the doctor's office (and the pharmacy and the bank and the bakery).
--drinks don't come with ice and when you ask for it, you only get two cubes.
--no one uses voicemail.  Your phone registers the missed call which indicates that it's your responsibility to call the person back to find out what they wanted.
--it's expected that 20% of the time the scheduled bus won't arrive.
--the salad dressing aisle isn't an aisle....it's half of one shelf with five bottles.
--no one ever says you shouldn't talk about politics, sex and religion.  It's mandatory.
--some married men still have their shirts ironed by their mammas.  Really.
--the only thing you can do on your lunch hour is eat lunch.  Nothing else is open.
--very few people know that the real reason you have helium balloons at a party is to breathe in the helium and talk funny.
--if you get carry-out pizza, sometimes you have to pay for the box.
--not everyone knows how to use the drive-thru at McDonald's.
--the only place Italians have seen a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is in the movies.  Therefore, lessons are required or they try to spread the peanut butter on top of the jelly.  Not easy.
--instead of, "Here's your receipt" (so you can balance your books)  it's "do you want a receipt?" (so they can balance theirs).
--Mexican food is expensive and chic and bad.
--an Italian pepperoni pizza is a pizza with peppers, not pepperoni.
--tall, dark and handsome 30-year old men blow their noses with cotton hankies.  Not just grandpas.
--you can't brag about how many miles you've run until you convert it to kilometers.
--few things are returnable.  Instead of  "you break it, you buy it" it's "you buy it, it's yours."
--your neighbor rushes out to tell you not to cut your hedge because you can only trim hedges when the moon is waxing, not waning.
--many public buildings don't turn on their lights during the day.
--there's an encore at every performance.  In fact, one time there wasn't much applause and the presenter still said, "I imagine you'd probably like an encore."
--moms buy their kids ice cream cones at 6pm.  Before dinner.
--it's okay for a 16-year old boy to call his teacher "dear".  Not as in "Dear Teacher" in a letter.  Just plain old "dear" like a waitress calls her customers in an old American diner.
--you don't see a Starbucks every three minutes.  Not even every three years.  They don't exist in Italy.

Those are just a few of the things I've noticed (or complained about).  It seems there's something new and surprising every day.  The next time this foreigner is ready to point out a difference about something that was better in her country, I'm just going to click the heels of my red Ferragamos (my favorite Italian shoes) and say, "There's no place like home.  But that's okay.  There's no place like this little town in Italy either."